chapter two; Worst Nightmare
"I SAW THAT."
Nico's voice stopped Jinx in her tracks to follow Leo up the stairs. She wasn't even sure Leo noticed she wasn't by his side.
"More like I sensed it." He amended.
Jinx rolled her eyes, "what's up with you and sensing everything?"
He shrugged, though she could tell it was painful. Nico was ready to have their talk right here, right now. Even with Hazel here. He trusted her and Jinx did too, but she wasn't ready to share her memory loss issues with her friend and then discuss the fact that Nico was able to sense her grasp on time loosen.
No, that was not a conversation she wanted to have at all, much less with two people.
He opened his mouth, but she cut him off before he said anything.
"Not now, Nico." Jinx stared at him. They stayed like that for a few seconds, but Nico relented, nodding his head.
Jinx turned and ran up the stairs, catching up with the boys. She skittered to a stop, taking in everything at once.
Coach Hedge and Piper were struggling against their duct tape bonds while one of the demon monkey dwarfs danced around the deck, picking up whatever wasn't tied down and sticking it in his bag. He was maybe four feet tall, even shorter than Coach Hedge, with bowed legs and chimp-like feet, and bright clothing. His green-plaid pants were pinned at the cuffs, and held up with bright-red suspenders over a striped pink-and-black woman's blouse. He wore half a dozen gold watches on each arm, and a zebra-patterned cowboy hat with a price tag dangling from the brim. His skin was covered with patches of scraggly red fur, though ninety percent of his body hair seemed to be concentrated in his magnificent eyebrows.
Despite his poor choice of clothing, he looked kind of expensive. At least in Jinx's eyes he did.
"Duck!" Leo shouted, dropping to the ground as the explosion knocked Jinx off of her foot.
"What was that?" She asked.
"Flash-bang grenade." Leo muttered, attempting to push himself up, but a monkey - Or dwarf - tugged his legs, robbing him of his tool belt.
Leo tried to grab him, but the dwarf only wandered away. The dwarf frolicked over to the nearest ballista, which his red-furred friend was priming to launch.
"This is literally my worst nightmare." Jinx whispered to herself, blinking away the shock. She got back up, pushing hair away from her eyes and whipping out her glasses.
She saw the red fur dwarf make his way to Coach. Jinx jutted out her hand, curling her fingers in concentration. "Stop right there!"
The dwarf's movements slowed to that of a sloth.
It wasn't much, but it made Jinx smile. She took a deep breath, focusing on stopping his movements, but instead her hold on him snapped and he jumped forward, slapping Hedge on the cheek.
Then he had the audacity to skip to the rail, bowing towards Leo and giving a small wave to Jinx, and did a backflip over the side.
Leo managed to get up. Jason was already on his feet, stumbling and running into things. Frank had turned into a silverback gorilla, but the flash grenade had hit him hard. He was sprawled on the deck with his tongue hanging out and his gorilla eyes rolled up in his head.
Frank was K.O'ed.
"Piper!" Jason staggered to the helm and carefully pulled the gag out of her mouth.
"Don't waste your time on me!" she said. "Go after them!"
At the mast, Coach Hedge mumbled, "HHHmmmmm-hmmm!"
Jinx ran to ungag him, but he refused. He kept nodding his head violently to the railing, signaling that he wanted her to chase after them.
She was hesitant to do so. Her time control was being glitchy and she was never too confident in herself to begin with.
Leo turned to Jason. "You feeling good enough to control the winds? I need a lift."
Jason frowned. "Sure, but—"
"Good," Leo said. "We've got some monkey dudes to catch."
Jinx rubbed her hands together, looking down. "Catch me if you see I'm not in control." She told Jason - who looked at her in confusion- and then she climbed the railing and jumped off.
She focused on slowing down the pace she was falling at and managed to land on her feet, a small breeze of air touching her ankles and she knew that Jason had helped her down.
Jason and Leo touched down in a big piazza lined with white marble government buildings and outdoor cafés. Bikes and Vespas clogged the surrounding streets, but the square itself was empty except for pigeons and a few old men drinking espresso.
None of the locals seemed to notice the huge Greek warship hovering over the piazza, or the fact that Jason and Leo had just flown down, Jason wielding a gold sword, and the other two.
"Where to?" Jason asked.
Leo stared at him. "Well, I dunno. Let me pull my dwarf-tracking GPS out of my tool belt.... Oh, wait! I don't have a dwarf-tracking GPS—or my tool belt!"
"Fine," Jason grumbled, glancing at Jinx. She only shrugged.
He glanced up at the ship as if to get his bearings, then pointed across the piazza. "The ballista fired the first dwarf in that direction, I think. Come on."
They waded through a lake of pigeons, then maneuvered down a side street of clothing stores and gelato shops - many that Jinx wanted to stop at. The sidewalks were lined with white columns covered in graffiti. A few panhandlers asked for change and Jinx's little knowledge of Italian kicked in as she apologized to them in poor Italian.
"We'll find it," Jason promised, referring to Leo's stolen tool belt.
They kept walking for what felt like forever when Jason put an arm out to stop them from walking any further. "Check it out."
They looked up. They'd arrived in a smaller piazza. Looming over them was a huge bronze statue of a buck-naked Neptune.
Blood rushed to Jinx's cheeks as she took off her already spotless glasses to clean.
"Ah, jeez." Leo averted his eyes.
The sea god stood on a big marble column in the middle of a fountain that wasn't working (which seemed kind of ironic). On either side of Neptune, little winged Cupid dudes were sitting, kind of chillin', like, What's up? Neptune himself (avoid the groin) was throwing his hip to one side in an Elvis Presley move. He gripped his trident loosely in his right hand and stretched his left hand out.
"Some kind of clue?" Leo wondered.
Jason frowned. "Maybe, maybe not. There are statues of the gods all over the place in Italy. I'd just feel better if we ran across Jupiter. Or Minerva. Anybody but Neptune, really."
"Is it because of the little fights Neptune and Jupiter have?" Jinx asked.
Jason looked at her, acknowledging her question, but didn't share an answer.
Leo climbed into the dry fountain. He put his hand on the statue's pedestal, and a rush of impressions surged through his fingertips.
"It's mechanical," he said. "Maybe a doorway to the dwarfs' secret lair?"
"Ooooo!" shrieked a nearby voice. "Secret lair?"
"I want a secret lair!" yelled another voice from above.
Jinx flinched, activating her sword. She watched it quickly transform and stood in form.
Jason stepped back, his sword ready. Leo almost got whiplash trying to look in two places at once. The red-furred dwarf in the cowboy hat was sitting about thirty feet away at the nearest café table, sipping an espresso held by his monkey-like foot. The brown-furred dwarf in the green bowler was perched on the marble pedestal at Neptune's feet, just above Leo's head.
"If we had a secret lair," said Red Fur, "I would want a firehouse pole."
"And a waterslide!" said Brown Fur, who was pulling random tools out of Leo's belt, tossing aside wrenches, hammers, and staple guns.
"Stop that!" Leo tried to grab the dwarf's feet, but he couldn't reach the top of the pedestal.
"Too short?" Brown Fur sympathized.
"You're calling me short?" Leo looked around for something to throw, but there was nothing but pigeons, and he doubted he could catch one. "Give me my belt, you stupid—"
"Now, now!" said Brown Fur. "We haven't even introduced ourselves. I'm Akmon. And my brother over there—"
"—is the handsome one!" The red-furred dwarf lifted his espresso. Judging from his dilated eyes and his maniacal grin, he didn't need any more caffeine. "Passalos! Singer of songs! Drinker of coffee! Stealer of shiny stuff!"
"Please!" shrieked his brother, Akmon. "I steal much better than you."
Passalos snorted. "Stealing naps, maybe!" He took out a knife—Piper's knife—and started picking his teeth with it.
"Hey!" Jason yelled. "That's my girlfriend's knife!"
"I'm not sure she would want it after that." Jinx muttered.
Jason lunged at Passalos, but the red-furred dwarf was too quick. He sprang from his chair, bounced off Jason's head, did a flip, and landed next to Leo, his hairy arms around Leo's waist.
"Save me?" the dwarf pleaded.
"Get off!" Leo tried to shove him away, but Passalos did a backward somersault and landed out of reach. Leo's pants promptly fell around his knees.
He stared at Passalos, who was now grinning and holding a small zigzaggy strip of metal. Somehow, the dwarf had stolen the zipper right off Leo's pants.
Despite the situation, Jinx laughed, quickly covering it with a cough when Leo glared at her.
"Give—stupid—zipper!" Leo stuttered, trying to shake his fist and hoist up his pants at the same time.
"Eh, not shiny enough." Passalos tossed it away.
Jason lunged with his sword. Passalos launched himself straight up and was suddenly sitting on the statue's pedestal next to his brother.
"Tell me I don't have moves," Passalos boasted.
He has better moves than me, Jinx admitted.
"Okay," Akmon said. "You don't have moves."
"Bah!" Passalos said. "Give me the tool belt. I want to see."
"No!" Akmon elbowed him away. "You got the knife and the shiny ball."
"Yes, the shiny ball is nice." Passalos took off his cowboy hat. Like a magician producing a rabbit, he pulled out the Archimedes sphere and began tinkering with the ancient bronze dials.
"Stop!" Leo yelled. "That's a delicate machine."
Jinx eyed Passalos, having a bone to pick with him. She inched forward, her sword down.
Jason came to his side and glared up at the dwarfs. "Who are you two, anyway?"
"The Kerkopes!" Akmon narrowed his eyes at Jason. "I bet you're a son of Jupiter, eh? I can always tell."
"Just like Black Bottom," Passalos agreed.
"Black Bottom?" Leo resisted the urge to jump at the dwarfs' feet again.
"Yes, you know." Akmon grinned. "Hercules. We called him Black Bottom because he used to go around without clothes. He got so tan that his backside, well—"
"At least he had a sense of humor!" Passalos said. "He was going to kill us when we stole from him, but he let us go because he liked our jokes. Not like you three. Grumpy, grumpy!"
"Hey!" Jinx said, fully offended.
"Hey, I've got a sense of humor," Leo snarled. "Give me back our stuff, and I'll tell you a joke with a good punch line."
Jinx got closer, "yeah, it'll end with my fist."
What a tiny couple of jerks!
"Nice try!" Akmon pulled a ratchet wrench from the tool belt and spun it like a noisemaker. "Oh, very nice! I'm definitely keeping this! Thanks, Blue Bottom!"
Blue Bottom? "What's blue bottom mean- oh."
Leo glanced down. His pants had slipped around his ankles again, revealing his blue undershorts. "That's it!" he shouted. "My stuff. Now. Or I'll show you how funny a flaming dwarf is."
His hands caught fire.
"Now we're talking." Jason thrust his sword into the sky. Dark clouds began to gather over the piazza. Thunder boomed.
"Oh yeah." Jinx's hair flew up as a holographic clock tower shone behind her. "How about instead of baby pictures, we see the real thing."
Leo and Jason turned to her in confusion, they've never seen her give a damn in a battle of sorts. She still technically didn't, but there was never a single opponent in her life that has irked her like these two dwarfs.
"Oh, scary!" Akmon shrieked.
"Yes," Passalos agreed. "If only we had a secret lair to hide in."
"Alas, this statue isn't the doorway to a secret lair," Akmon said. "It has a different purpose."
Leo's gut twisted. The fires died in his hands, and he realized something was very wrong. He yelled, "Trap!" and dove out of the fountain. Unfortunately, Jason was too busy summoning his storm.
Leo's words hadn't registered when he slammed his body on top of her as five golden cords shot from the Neptune statue's fingers. One barely missed Leo's feet. The rest homed in on Jason, wrapping him like a rodeo calf and yanking him upside down.
A bolt of lightning blasted the tines of Neptune's trident, sending arcs of electricity up and down the statue, but the Kerkopes had already disappeared.
"Bravo!" Akmon applauded from a nearby café table. "You make a wonderful piñata, son of Jupiter!"
"Yes!" Passalos agreed. "Hercules hung us upside down once, you know. Oh, revenge is sweet!"
Leo summoned a fireball. He lobbed it at Passalos, who was trying to juggle two pigeons and the Archimedes sphere. He rolled off of her, firing up his hands.
Jinx was furious that two insignificant dwarfs had undermined her twice.
Yes, use that anger. Use it and I will lend you more power.
"Eek!" The dwarf jumped free of the explosion, dropping the sphere and letting the pigeons fly.
"Time to leave!" Akmon decided.
The voice had startled her enough that the clock tower flicked out of sight and the dwarfs slipped out of mind.
She needed to do more research after this.